Notes on the ἀριστεία of Thebes

Abstract

According to the calculations of Busolt, whose elaborate essay on the Spartan army may be regarded as the standard work on this subject, the forces which King Cleombrotus took into action at Leuctra consisted of four out of the six μόραι, each containing 35 out of the 40 service classes, and 300 ἱππεῖς, or Guards.That 35 classes were mobilised for the campaign of Leuctra is directly attested by Xenophon and cannot be called into question. That four out of the six μόραι took part in the battle is an inference from another passage in Xenophon, which states that three years previously Cleombrotus was despatched to Central Greece with four μόραι.This inference is only valid if we may assume that the Spartan forces in Phocis were maintained at undiminished strength from 374 to 371 B.C. But such an assumption is hardly justified. A priori it is unlikely that a force representing some 60 per cent, of the entire military establishment of Sparta should have been marooned in Central Greece for three years on end. The Spartan government was of necessity most economical in the use of its citizen troops. As a general rule it reserved them for the critical operations of a field campaign and recalled them home at the close of each fighting season. For the routine duties of garrison service it relied almost entirely on mercenaries. But the emergency which had necessitated the sending of a large field force to Phocis in 374 B.C. had passed away long before the campaign of Leuctra. In 374, no doubt, a strong Theban force was concentrated for the invasion of Phocis. In 373 and 372, however, the Thebans were preoccupied with the coercion of Thespiae and the occupation of Plataea; and in view of the ill-concealed hostility of Athens and the presence of an Attic force on the Boeotian border at Oropus, we may fairly assume that a considerable portion of the Theban field forces had during these years to be called away from the Phocian frontier.